Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

Pop Evil: Pretty standard pop-rock. The lead singer yelled "let me see those hands!" at least twice every song. Blech.

Deafheaven: I don't understand why this band is so critically acclaimed. All of their songs sound the same, and I don't say that in a dismissive way, I mean it absolutely literally.

Alter Bridge: Every time the lead singer had a guitar solo, he looked like he was trying really hard to squeeze out a ****.

Gojira: Probably my favorite band of the day, their stuff is brutal. Apparently they're French, but you couldn't tell by how hard they play.

Breaking Benjamin: Crap emo-rock. The lead singer's gut was busting out of his shirt for half the show.

Korn: I had never seen them live before yesterday. It was a really good show, although my experienced was slightly diminished because a pit formed right in front of me and I spent most of the show pushing sweaty, drunk skinheads back into each other. Jonathan Davis has a receding hair line, and Fieldy brough his two kids out on stage, and now I feel super old. They played a new song; apparently they have a new album out? Glad I saw them, would see again, probably not buying their new material.

Disturbed: David Draiman is starting to look like a fat Vin Diesel. He was constantly walking around the stage during the show, and constantly sounded out of breath. Also, the band played covers of "The Sound of Silence" and "Land of Confusion", and for a group with 5 or 6 albums of their own material, it's kind of sad that they have to cover ******* Simon and Garfunkel. The 16-year-olds in front of us were going nuts, which is odd to me since they were still breastfeeding when the first Disturbed album came out. Whatever, **** these guys.

All That Remains: They have a few catchy songs, and they're decent live, but not something I'd go out of my way to see again.

Corrosion of Conformity: There was a lot of awesome food at the show. Specialty burgers, barbecue, pizza, etc. We went to a place called Cheese Louise and got these awesome "grilled cheese" sandwiches. I use the quotes because it's actually a mac and cheese sandwich with bacon, pulled pork, or jalapenos. Freaking delicious. I mention all this because my lunch was way more interesting than anything this band was doing.

Babymetal: First and foremost, their musicians are amazing. The bass player absolutely shreds (on a six-string!), the two guitarists can wail, and the drummer has mad skills. The lead singer can really sing, although there was only one song where you could really tell. The other two girls... are coordinated, I guess. This was the most Japanese thing I've ever seen, and I'm glad I saw them, and I will likely never listen to them again.

Marilyn Manson: I've seen him once before about 15 years ago, and I remember really liking that show (of course, I was in highschool, and my taste in most things sucked back then). The show today, on the other hand, was like watching somebody succumb to drug addiction in fast forward. I don't know if he was really ****** up or if he's acting; my guess would be the former. Played all the hits, but I left early because of...

Killswitch Engage: Disclaimer: this is my favorite band. And they did not disappoint. Played a bunch of Jesse-era stuff, but also the Howard-era hits as well (Rose of Sharyn and End of Heartache). I could see them play once a month and not get tired of it. Freaking amazing show, but only 45 minutes or so. I really wish they'd start headlining shows again so they can play more than the top five Spotify songs.

Five Finger Death Punch: metal music for racists and people who say "you don't know me" un-ironically.

Slipknot: Great show. It started to lightning just as they came on, and started to rain just as they finished. They haven't slowed down at all in the 15ish years they've been around, which can't be said about some of the other bands this weekend (*cough* Disturbed *cough*). The set was pretty awesome, too; the two percussionists (not the drummer) had their drums set up on each side of the stage on lifting, rotating platforms. Heavy as all ****.

Well, now that I've had a day to digest the show a bit, here a few observations. First off, it was great show all around. I'd say the that Saint Asonia had the best energy on stage. All of those guys seemed to be genuinely having a great time just being up on stage playing their music. I was actually a bit annoyed that their set was so short, only about forty minutes or so.

Alter Bridge was OK. I'm not really a fan, so I didn't know any of the songs they played, but they played well enough.

Breaking Benjamin put on a good show, they used various singers, sometimes the lead singer would play some drums, and at one point they broke into Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit for no apparent reason. Pretty enjoyable actually.

Then it was time for Disturbed. Lots of pyrotechnics going off. I was close enough to the stage that I could feel the heat from every flame blast. I don't know how those guys manage to keep playing with twenty foot flames right beside them, but they managed it. You could tell that they've been doing this for years. They came it, played hard and fast, and put on a good show. They played a sort of Disturbed's greatest hits show. All of their most popular songs from all of their albums. The only cover they played was The Sound of Silence, which I'm fine with. They do a great version of the song, and it's pretty popular right now, so I'm not surprised that they played it. They brought out a couple women that played the stringed instruments just for that song. Those two must have the easiest job of anyone on the tour, come out, play one song and they're done until the next city.

Went to see Band of Skulls this past weekend. The opening act was Mothers, who sound like the deformed love child of Cold Play and that one slow Cranberries song. I can't really imagine who the audience for that type of sound is, except possibly narcoleptic sloths. Band of Skulls, on the other hand, was awesome. They played mostly the faster riff-driven songs, and the handful of slower songs they played (e.g. "Honest") were really well done. They're much better live than recorded; definitely recommended.

I also went to see Killswitch Engage last night. As I've mentioned before in this thread, they're my favorite band, so of course I loved it. And of course I'm angry that they aren't headlining shows anymore, so they only play about 45 minutes. They played one song I've never heard live before ("Holy Diver"), and a good mix of older hits ("My Last Serenade", "Rose of Sharyn", "End of Heartache") and newer ones ("Always", "In Due Time", "Strength of the Mind"). Great show, will see again as many times as they show up in the area.

The headliner for that show was Volbeat, who I didn't know much about prior to seeing them live. After listening to them play about an hour (and leaving before they finished), I can report that they're equal parts Johnny Cash, Elvis, 80's cock rock. Apparently they're Danish, so many all those artists are just arriving over three. Nearly all of the songs they played had identical chord progressions, there's a lot that have "Woah-oh-oh" sections, and the lead singer is the only one doing anything remotely interesting, if repetitive. Won't listen to going forward.

I finally got around to backing up the stuff on my phone an decided to put one of the videos on Youtube. Here is the video of Distrubed doing "The Sound of Silence" at the concert I posted a bit about up there.

I saw Parkway Drive and a bunch of other bands a couple of months ago. The other bands were so memorable, I can't remember their names*. But really, it doesn't matter, because Parkway Drive was freaking awesome. I hadn't really listened to them much prior to going to the concert, although one of the friends I went with swears by them. After the show, I'm a big fan; they're heavy, driving, and angry as ****. It's the kind of music that'll make you want to shotgun a beer and then punch a dude in the face. The lead singer is doing all of the hard work, where as the rest of the band could have been replaced by studio musicians and I don't think anybody would notice. They're Australian, so their sense of metal showmanship isn't quite aligned with the North American aesthetic. Case in point: towards the end of their show, they shot bright multi-colored confetti into the crowd at certain points during the chorus, and they don't wear all black. This isn't to say they aren't a "true" or "legitimate" heavy metal band, but rather to point out that certain particulars of the metal "scene" aren't universal. Highlights include "Carrion" and "Deadweight".

More recently, I saw HELLYEAH and In Flames and some warm-up band that wanted so hard to be Tool is was embarrassing for everyone involved. For those that don't know, HELLYEAH is Chad Gray (the lead singer from Mudvayne) and the musicians from Nothingface. They have a "nu metal cowboys" motif, and it doesn't really work on any level. Plus, Chad Gray's vocals are very distinctive, and the entire show I couldn't help but think about how much more I'd rather be at a Mudvayne concert. Enjoyable live, but nothing I'll listen to in my spare time.

In Flames is a strange band. They've been around for almost two decades, and the constant turn-over of the line-up has produced three distinct "eras" of their music: the early adventure metal (all vikings and dragons and such), the middle metalcore (incorporating keyboards and more introspective), and the later hard rock (mostly bland and same-ish). I'm a fan of the metal core stuff, although I appreciate the early stuff as well. Unfortunately, as they just released a new album which they're on tour promoting, they played most of the newer bland rock. But they played enough of the old/middle era stuff to satisfy the fans of those albums, and the hangover I had the next day must indicate that I had a good time. Some of my favorite songs include "Cloud Connected", "Reflect the Storm", and "The Quiet Place". One of my favorite metalcore bands, and a very large and obvious influence on later bands in the genre.

* This isn't strictly true: one of them was We Came As Romans, who I only remember because they seem to open for every show they can possibly book. However, they're not worth mentioning, except in this explanatory footnote.

Went to a show a few months ago featuring Within The Ruins, Volumes, and Born of Osiris. Within The Ruins is a fairly standard metalcore band that tries to play a fast, technical style, and mostly achieves it, but there's just nothing unique about the band worth recalling. Volumes is what you would get if you crossed X Ambassadors with Breaking Benjamin; it's "yeah-yeah" wall-of-sound rock for Millenials. Your mileage may vary.

Born of Osiris essentially takes what Within The Ruins are trying to do and turns it up to 11. Their technical deathcore style is full of syncopation and interesting progressions. It's like Threat Signal without the random 4-minute instrumental outros (related: I feel like Threat Signal is vastly underappreciated). Good enough that I've added them to some of my playlists, but not enough that I'll go out and buy any of their albums.

I also recently saw a show opened by Russian Circles, a threesome featuring slow, brooding instrumentals and no vocals. Every song sounds like the background music of every action movie during the middle of the third act when the hero is kicking everybody's ***. Pretty boring stuff TBH. The next band on the card was Eagles of Death Metal. I have a love/hate relationship with their music; it's effectively simple while being surprisingly unique, but at the same time insufferably hipster. The lead singer doesn't do the falsetto voice during live performances which remove a large element of their unique sound, and acoustics at the venue were terrible which makes it sounds like bland 4-chord arena rock. Enjoyable, but I prefer to listen to their album material.

The headliner was Mastodon. I have no idea how this band is so popular; they have a few unique and interesting songs (mostly from their later albums), while the rest of their material is plodding, confused mashups in minor chords. I actually left early to beat the rush for Ubers/cabs, and likely won't listen much going forward (outside of the aforementioned handful of interesting songs).

Too lazy to type out the rest of a recap, but I will say that the best show of the weekend was Amon Amarth. The drum kit in the longboat, on-stage Viking battles, and general nuttiness of the show was great fun.

While I don't think Linkin Park qualifies as metal, or even worth listening to for the last several years, it is music news. Chester Benington, the lead singer went and hung himself today. Apparently he was close friends with Chris Cornell. Today being Cornell's birthday, it seems to me that this was his way of paying homage to his lost friend.